


Prayer For the Newly Damned

by BelladonnaWyck, justlikeyouimagined



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Cock & Ball Torture, Dubious Consent, Humiliation, Insanity, Lobotomy, M/M, Non-Consensual Bondage, Post-Fall (Hannibal), Watersports, Whump, With an emphasis on balls, whumpfest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:54:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21707803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelladonnaWyck/pseuds/BelladonnaWyck, https://archiveofourown.org/users/justlikeyouimagined/pseuds/justlikeyouimagined
Summary: "Robbed of what he had hoped for Will, Hannibal has forced nature’s hand for a redo."
Relationships: Will Graham & Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 16
Kudos: 82





	Prayer For the Newly Damned

**Author's Note:**

> Our entry for Nephila's [Hannibal Whumpfest!](https://twitter.com/callmenephila/status/1191825225370996736)

The two men lay curled up on the bed, their limbs entangled in the sheets so below the waist they seemed to morph and twist into one solitary creature. Hannibal is on his back, his chest rising and falling in a particularly steady rhythm that doesn’t betray the stabbing sensations shooting from where Will grips him ungently. Will manhandles his limp cock and balls, pulling on the loose skin of his sack until his nuts shine bright: two bulbous red globes, hot in WIll’s other hand. 

Will brings his thumb and middle finger together, giving the abused sack another _flick_. Flick, flick, again. Hannibal keeps his hands above his head, his breathing regular. Will watches his placid face with wicked enthusiasm. Flick, swat, smack. 

Hannibal’s pupils contract tightly with every new series of inflictions: the only reaction he has yet to learn how to fully control. _Tap _, whap, flick. Will grins wider, a devilish look that suits him just fine, Hannibal muses. Another series of taps are directed at the inflamed skin of his balls.__

__Will shucks off the tangled blankets, inadvertently pulling harder on Hannibal’s sack. He lets out a soft puff of air that tickles the side of Will’s cheek._ _

__“Would you deny me my pleasure?” Will asks, tugging once more, enough to squeeze his pinky in alongside the rest of his fingers that separate Hannibal’s balls from his body. He’s been stretched so many times like this, it doesn’t take long anymore for WIll to pull him apart._ _

__“You crave it too much,” Hannibal answers, his voice even._ _

__Will laughs - a twinkling laugh like glasses crashing to a tiled floor. He smiles and licks the stray bead of sweat that meanders out of Hannibal’s hairline._ _

__“You lay before your monster, yet you refuse to admit your involvement.” Will seethes, though it isn’t a righteous anger, nor a venomous one, it’s simply the way that he sometimes sounds now. Dangerous. On edge._ _

___Flick, swat, tap_._ _

__Hannibal’s top lip curls a fraction and it’s enough for Will. “You’re beautiful when I hurt you.”_ _

__A blooming warmth grows in his chest unconnected to the fire pulling at his groin. For all the abuse, it’s this that makes him visibly shudder._ _

__“Turn over for me, baby. Let me see.”_ _

__Like that, WIll’s hands strangling his balls are gone. The blood rushes back in, flooding his testicles; it makes the area warmer still, a biting sort of heat that Hannibal wants to curl in on. He doesn’t. He shifts himself over and sets himself up on all fours, then folds down so his knees collapse into his chest and his ass is presented to where Will sits up in bed, waiting._ _

__His hole still gapes at this angle, even after all the time Will spent elsewhere. Will hums his approval and runs a finger through the slick that still coats the angry red edges. He doesn’t need to slip his finger in to gather more, enough of the used lube slides out when Hannibal tries to relax. He smears the remaining wetness around, wiping his blunt nails on the pink of his insides that peak just behind the pucker._ _

__His red sack hangs low, slowly pulling back up into his body after the tremendous stretch. For a time, Will does nothing but watch the show._ _

__“You’ve gone soft again, baby,” Will says at last, his voice thick from liquor._ _

__Hannibal hums in response, knowing what’s coming. He closes his eyes and waits, his ass obediently lifted to WIll’s onslaught. With little more warning than a shift on the bed, WIll slides his cock into his waiting hole, then sets a ferocious pace that batters Hannibal’s insides._ _

__Like this, his prostate swollen and oversensitive from the hours that have already ticked by, he’s still expected to get hard._ _

__“Don’t you want to show me how much you love me?” Will drops himself over Hannibal like a blanket, letting his breath fall heavy into his ear. “Baby knows how much I love to see you get off again. Be good for me, baby. Show me.”_ _

__Hannibal closes his eyes against the words, not from their unkindness, but because he _wants_ to be good for Will when he’s like this. It’s a kindness when he’s like this, giving Hannibal the ghost of something he might have fantasized about for years locked in that white cell. _ _

__Slowly, pitifully, his cock starts to feel heavier between his legs._ _

__It hurts, even as he counts the geometric designs that feather out around the skull graven into the floor of the Norman Chapel, their existence in seeming sharp contrast to the inevitability of death, the crisp lines and concentric circles suggesting an infinity of possibilities. He cannot deny that it hurts. He smells the sharp copper of his blood laden heavy in the air, feels it slip warm and tacky in some places down his thighs. Will is even more relentless than usual, today._ _

__The dribble of fluid that leaks sluggishly from his tip is simply a physical response to having his prostate so abused, the punishing pace uncomfortable but not unwelcome. Hannibal relishes these moments of Will’s personal brand of love, knows when they are together like this, sharing breath and blood and skin, that he is the only thing Will is thinking about._ _

__There’s something to be said for getting everything you ever wanted._ _

__\---_ _

__Hannibal’s body feels wrung out. Until now, everything they’d done together was something he’d agreed to, in one way or the other. But tonight, lashed to the bed by ropes that chafe at his wrists, and blindfolded, Hannibal is outraged, the predator that lives in his chest snarling and pacing in indignation at being held down._ _

__Will drugged him, just after dinner when he sometimes goes soft and sweet and affectionate in Hannibal’s arms. Hannibal hadn’t expected the needle plunged unceremoniously into his neck while Will nuzzled his cheek like mated animals. He certainly hadn’t expected to awaken at all once the black crept in at the edges of his vision, assuming Will was finally taking his righteous anger and funneling it into something more permanent._ _

__He hears shuffling: movement across their plushly carpeted bedroom floor. He feels the distinct crinkle of plastic beneath him; Will had put out a protective tarp on the bed. Hannibal is sure that he plans to kill him tonight._ _

__Hannibal finds a bitter, angry part of his brain that he rarely accesses doesn't seem to mind that concept so much, for reasons that Hannibal is displeased by._ _

__There had been an infinite number of times throughout the years that Hannibal had known Will where he imagined his death at the other man’s hands. By his hands, with his teeth, on a blood-stained cliffside under the pale light of the moon. It had been euphoric. A natural release._ _

__This has all been a bastardization of that. Torture without a malicious edge. Pain shot through with love and _regard_. It left a taste like ashes in the back of Hannibal’s throat. _ _

__“Hey baby, you were so sleepy after dinner,” Will mounts him suddenly, his thighs spread wide over Hannibal’s lap, further trapping his legs together._ _

__Hannibal can hear the insanity laced through his words. The Fall had turned Will into something distinctly other. Something neither of them had expected. A potentiality that Hannibal had, for the first time in his life since he’d lost Mischa, been unprepared for. They’d been reborn from the salt waters of the Atlantic, but Will had returned to him _wrong_ , inverted. A sickly, grotesque thing that you left out in the woods for the crows to consume. _ _

__“You love me, don’t you Hannibal?” And Hannibal had never been afraid, not even on _that_ night, blood-soaked snow and the clear bell screams of a child still ringing in his ears. But the tone of Will’s voice nearly makes him shudder, his pulse still steady but on the precipice of an anguished sort of danger response. _ _

__“With all that I am,” he answers, his voice forcibly steadied._ _

__Will grins, an expression that doesn't reach his eyes and sucks the warmth from the room. He leans forward to brush a stray hair away from Hannibal’s face._ _

__“What is this, Will?” He tugs his wrists against the rough rope._ _

__“I only needed your cooperation.” Will offers, running his hand down the side of his face. He doesn’t stop himself from moving against it, tilting his chin up and into the soft embrace. Like this, his eyes blinded, every other sensation feels electric._ _

__“When have I not shown you cooperation?” Hannibal asks, bringing to mind the increasingly violent scenes that Will has brought to him and that Hannibal, like bending to the will of an enthusiastic child, had conceded to each one in turn._ _

__“Baby, I know. You’re so good to me.” Will leans down, his lips forming the words just above Hannibal’s own so he can feel the tickle of his breath on his tender skin. Hannibal pulls his head up to close the distance, and for a moment there are no ropes or blindfolds holding Hannibal back. There is only the warmth of Will’s tongue in his mouth, seeking, insatiable for more of him._ _

__“Then why the ropes this time? The sheets?” Hannibal asks carefully, though he needs to know the answer. Better to go into the night prepared than with a last wisp of useless hope._ _

__Will’s lips smile against his cheek, lay soft kisses down the length of his neck. “Mmm, are you scared?” A low chuckle felt on the smooth skin just below his jaw._ _

__Hannibal shakes his head once, which makes Will laugh again in earnest and grind his half-hard cock into Hannibal’s stomach. “Mmm, of course you aren’t. You don’t even know what that means.” The last words spit out of his mouth, distasteful to his tongue._ _

__He rights himself, ungently using Hannibal’s body to climb back up until he is straddling his waist, touching himself absentmindedly. Hannibal cannot see any of this, only feels the hard press of his fingers into his flesh, the way he shifts and sits himself upright and shakes a bit when he jerks himself off._ _

__“Open up, sweet thing.” Will demands, shimmying himself up closer to Hannibal’s chest and for a moment, a rush of arousal floods through his veins at the prospect of tasting Will. Licking his lips so they shine, he obliges._ _

__It’s a combination of the heat and the smell that splashes over his face that shuts down his burgeoning lust for the man above him. He snaps his mouth shut tight, then spits to the side as Will continues to piss, a heavy steady stream onto his mouth and nose and cheeks._ _

__Will stops himself and tsks out loud. “Open wide, Hannibal. Show me your love.” he chuckles, his piss-wet cock slapping against Hannibal’s cheek._ _

__Hannibal’s nostrils flare, his chest rises high with the indignation he cannot keep repressed. He reeks of Will, the piss at first warming his skin before cooling nearly immediately against the air. His upper arms and chest erupt in gooseflesh, which delights Will. He runs his nails over the skin, scratching at the bumps seemingly to help ward away the cold._ _

__“Untie me?” Hannibal requests, keeping the snarl out of his words. Will was right to tie him up for this. He will willingly take his cruelty in the form of lashings or needles. But not this. _This_ makes a rage roil just beneath the surface. _ _

__Will pulls his damp blindfold off his head so that they might look eye-to-eye. Hannibal doesn’t see Will behind the gaze at all - the other has come and taken up residence._ _

__“I said open up.” Will says more seriously, then slaps him hard with a wide swipe of his hand against his cheek. When Hannibal doesn’t react, his hand whips up to plug Hannibal’s nose._ _

__The two stare at each other for ten seconds, twenty seconds, nearly forty-five seconds before Hannibal relents and opens his mouth to take in a gasping breath. Will immediately seizes the opportunity and shoves his cock into the open hole. Seconds later, Hannibal tastes the acrid piss as it shoots frothy into his mouth._ _

__Will’s fingers are jammed between his teeth, holding his jaw open and keeping Hannibal from _biting_ like he so desperately wants to. His throat spasms and he’s forced to swallow, piss spills out of his mouth, slides warm down his chin and pools beneath him on the tarp. His hair is soaked and matted to his neck. _ _

__He glares at Will and thinks that his hubris was believing he could contain Will’s becoming, that he could shape their mutual joining into something beautiful. This _other_ that has taken up residence behind Will’s eyes _is_ beautiful, but in the same way ruby blood on white snow can be beautiful, in the way entropy and rot and decay can smell sweet, like sugar-water, before consuming you entirely. _ _

__“God, you’re so pretty like this, darlin’. All covered in me,” Will means it, he believes it. Hannibal can see the madness in his eyes, but underneath that, he sees the honesty. “I needed to make sure you smelled like me, that everyone knows you’re _mine_.” The last word is more animal growl than anything human, and Hannibal’s spine tingles with it. _ _

__It seems never-ending, Will must have hydrated and held it throughout the entire day, his stream slowing but still not stopping even as he plunges his wet cock into the sloshing mess still contained in Hannibal’s mouth, fucking deep into his throat._ _

__Hannibal gags and it comes out as more of a sputtering, choking gasp. His throat is clogged by Will and his nostrils are flooded by the piss he coughs up around his cock. He closes his eyes against the onslaught and tells himself it’s only to keep the stinging fluid from them and not because he simply does not wish to see the empty void of Will’s eyes as he takes his pleasure from Hannibal’s body._ _

__Will sets a brutal, punishing pace, forcing himself into Hannibal’s throat and staying there for longer and longer moments, time stretching gossamer-thin between consciousness and the blissful promise of its loss. Darkness creeps into the corners of Hannibal’s blurring vision._ _

__Just as Hannibal is about to slip into the oblivion of that gathering shadow, Will’s palm falls sharp and shocking across his cheek, the slap hard enough that it moves Hannibal’s head to the side and dislodges Will’s cock from his throat._ _

__A deluge of piss, saliva, and bile coats Hannibal’s cheeks and chest, spills warm and wet across the plastic sheeting. “Beautiful, baby. I love you just like this, so sweet and soft for me.”_ _

__Before Hannibal can recover, Will dives forward to kiss him through the mess, uncaring that he’s covered in filth, tongue sweeping across his lax lips and into his mouth. Hannibal can still feel Will’s cock, hard and leaking steadily into the hair on Hannibal’s chest, pre-come smearing tacky and matting the hair so that it pulls uncomfortably with every shift._ _

__Hannibal blinks his eyes open when Will has been still for too long. He doesn't trust it, realizes that he doesn't truly trust Will at all anymore. Not since the Fall. Not since his progressive viciousness turned away from other dangerous men to focus only on him._ _

__There's no time to linger; Will has snapped again, a band pulled tight, and he is moving, moving, moving around. Slipping in his mess, shimmying his way to curl around Hannibal's side, his thigh coming to clutch over Hannibal's stomach. He nestles into his damp chest hair, curls his hips so his erection slides and shifts against his side._ _

__"Will you untie me now?" Hannibal asks, sensing a moment of tenderness in Will that he's learned to take advantage of._ _

__"Oh!" Will pops up off his chest, surprised. "But why?!"_ _

__"Only so I may touch you back," he ventures, blinking a stray droplet of piss from off his brow._ _

__This appeases Will and he scurries to undo the bonds. Untethered, Hannibal considers the force it would take to snap Will's neck from this angle, determines he'd need to sit up and give away his intention before the physics of it are in his favor. Instead, he accepts Will back into his arms, curls them around his muscular back and side._ _

__"I know I'm not right," Will says, his voice suddenly quivering, and Hannibal is thrown back up the cliff to when he'd last seen him whole. The desperate way he'd clung to him then is mirrored in the way his fingers scrape and pet at his shoulder and chest now._ _

__Will continues, "I know you wish I became something different than what I am."_ _

__"Will you're not -"_ _

__"No!" Will snaps, and the frenetic energy has slipped back behind his eyes. "No! I know you wish I was a different version of me." He grabs at Hannibal's lips, digging his fingers in behind his teeth. Hannibal allows the intrusion, looks on passively as Will seems to physically pull out the offending words from his mouth. He looks at Hannibal sternly. "I won't have a liar in our bed."_ _

__He pulls his fingers out, spit-slick and smelling faintly of piss. Seemingly satisfied, he nestles back into the comfort of Hannibal's nest of chest hair. Like a babe, he seeks out his perk nipple and suckles on it, his teeth teasing the sensitive flesh._ _

__Hannibal finds himself hushing Will, rubbing his hand along his back in soothing strokes. "I only wished for your becoming. I did not presume to know its final form."_ _

__Will pulls hard on Hannibal's nipple as he rips himself off. He looks up at Hannibal, tears rimming his eyes. "Sometimes I don't think I can stop it." His voice cracks on the final words. Tears spill._ _

__Hannibal pets through Will's curls, comforting a frightened animal. "If it comes to it, I will." Hannibal admits what he's been toying with in his mind for the past several weeks of abuse._ _

__Will searches Hannibal's eyes for something and then nods silently, his body shaking uncontrollably now. He yawns deeply and puts his head back onto his chest to hear the steady _thump thump thump_ of his heart. Like that, he sleeps._ _

__\---_ _

__Hannibal has always considered cooking to be a particularly effective therapy that he often suggests to his patients. He sees the meditative appeal in the process of preparing, the godlike ability to turn a collection of individual ingredients into a final, life-sustaining meal._ _

___A last supper._ He thinks to himself, intrigued by the notion. He’s considered leaving. Considered killing Will. He’s even considered killing them both, the most likely end result for two as conjoined as them. _ _

__But, until today, he’d never considered food as a means to bring them together into a semblance of normality that almost fits, almost provides the connection and intimacy he craves._ _

__He’s been in the kitchen much of the day, and Will has filtered in and out of the space, staying for long conversations, sometimes reminiscing and sometimes with eyes towards the future._ _

__“Will you pass me the salt, darling?” Hannibal asks to his shadow, Will standing so close behind him that he can feel his warm breath stir the hairs on his nape._ _

__Hannibal has his hands deep in the mutton mixture, adding a bit more oil as Will sits the salt grinder down beside him. There are two whole fish slow-roasting in the oven, their bitter herb and olive oil rub aromatic in the enclosed space. Fish that Will himself had caught on one of his better days._ _

__He’s made unleavened bread earlier, and it sits cooling on the bread rack behind him, the smell still warm and welcoming. A bean stew simmers on the stove top and Hannibal finally finishes with the mutton and transfers it to a pan to cook beside the stew._ _

__“This is what the disciples had at the last supper,” Will states, his subtlety lost beneath the waves of the Atlantic, somewhere amidst his sanity. He is a blunt instrument now, no less beautiful but far more deadly._ _

__“It is,” Hannibal acknowledges with a slight tilt of his head, giving the mutton a slight shake in the pan to disperse evenly._ _

__“Will you betray me with a kiss for thirty pieces of silver?” Will taunts, though he doesn’t appear afraid._ _

__Hannibal rather thinks he feels more like Peter, denying the man he loves three times before the rooster crows. He denies this _other_ Will that lurks just beneath the surface, though he has not appeared yet today._ _

__“Can you help me collect a bottle of wine from the cellar while I finish the honeyed dates?” Hannibal asks instead of giving an answer, smiling placidly at his beloved._ _

__“I would die without you,” Will says, apropos of nothing when they are seated around the table later that evening, finishing up their meal. He smiles after, showing too many teeth, and an involuntary shudder races down Hannibal’s back._ _

__Just as quickly as it appeared, the _other_ retreats, and it is just Will left sitting across from Hannibal, his smile turned soft and sad. _ _

__“You shall never be without me, sweet boy,” Hannibal promises and, for the first time in the long months they’ve been together, he isn’t sure he believes it._ _

__\---_ _

__Weeks pass, the ebb and flow of the daily minutiae of everyday life seeps in and Hannibal will admit he has grown complacent. Will’s good days have begun to outnumber his bad days and Hannibal is reminded that even brains can heal from trauma. Perhaps Will’s becoming isn’t over just yet after all._ _

__And then, one night, Hannibal awakens to a cold metal slab beneath his back and dark black bars surrounding him. He’s in a _cage._ And this, this more even than the bindings he’d been strapped into weeks prior, rankles something deeply primal and, he can admit in the sanctuary of his own mind, terrified, within him. _ _

__It is as though Will were privy to the very confines of the darkest, sharpest corners of Hannibal’s memory palace, the places only nightmares dwell, and that he plucked one of the most monstrous from those shadows and pulled it forth into their waking life._ _

__Years march by behind Hannibal’s eyes, flashes of memories so long stored away and angry for it. He’d been in the care of the orphanage for long enough to know gnawing, bottomless hunger. To know rough hands, and mouths and bodies pressed too close, to know the feeling of the breath being stolen from his lungs and to be intimately familiar with the taste of his own blood. And the blood of others._ _

__And still Will Graham was able to surprise him. Hannibal isn’t like other creatures, even though he can acknowledge the pinprick of fear that settls in the back of his mind, he doesn’t allow it to come forth or present as panic. He remains calm as he assesses the situation, takes in his surroundings to determine _where_ he is. _ _

__He’d fallen asleep in their bed; he can still see the black, silk sheets hanging from the corner of the ornate wooden bed only a few feet away.The cage reminds him of a dog crate, though it’s clearly made with human use in mind. It’s just wide enough for his shoulders to barely brush each side, tall enough that he can crouch on hands and knees in a position he’s sure will cause his muscles to ache and burn._ _

__He is currently on his back, fully nude, and his skin prickles with gooseflesh at the chill air of the room. He doesn’t see Will yet, but he can hear him breathing. Can feel his presence like static in the air after a storm._ _

__He will kill him for this, he thinks. Slowly. He’ll savor Will’s pain as he breaks him down into the most beautiful parts of himself, takes them and repurposes them, elevates them into something ephemeral and yet made all the more lovely for it. He’ll take his heart, cook it in brandy to pull out the toxic creature that has settled into his bones and his blood, polluted his mind._ _

__But the injustice of his position slips from his mind when Will comes into view. He is manic, sleep-deprived, clearly teetering on a precipice of violent madness. If Hannibal is a careful, cautious killer, the kind of danger Will represents to him is its polar opposite. Blinded by emotions, beyond reason._ _

__“Will,” he tries, patiently. “Get me out of this cage.”_ _

__Will dips his head down over the bars. He’s sitting on top of the cage, as though one might wrestle an alligator into submission, Will has mounted the iron bars and holds Hannibal pressed into the floor. Upside down, he shakes his head back and forth wildly._ _

__“Can’t do it. You were going to run.” He pauses, sweeps frustratedly at the curls that fall around his face. His voice seems directed at someone else besides either of them, “You were talking in your sleep again. Chat chat chatting away.”_ _

__Hannibal doesn’t fall for it, but goes quiet all the time. If this is the game Will is playing, then these are the rules he must follow. For now, he’s in no particular position to argue._ _

__“What did I say, love? Surely you don’t believe soporific ramblings. We’ve done well, lately, haven’t we?” Hannibal talks to Will like one would a small child, but without the condescending tone. If Will is acting childish, it is because he thinks Hannibal deserves it. Hannibal tries to think back through the fog of sleep to pull out any remnants of dreams._ _

__Hannibal shimmies, moving awkwardly in the confined space until he is on all fours, somewhat more dignified than laying belly up on the hard metal. “Will,” he insists, his voice low with some level of threat. “Let me out so we can talk.”_ _

__Will shakes his head once more and dips back up, out of sight. There’s movement on top of the cage and then Hannibal feels the sharp sting of Will’s hand on his bare ass, hit through the bars. A buzzing shame creeps over his shoulders, up his neck and burns into his cheeks. It’s quickly replaced by a burning anger at his mishandling._ _

__“Will,” he warns, but what good is it going to do? When Will doesn’t answer, just quietly, excitedly breathes above him, Hannibal shifts uncomfortably and after a time, waits._ _

__It’s at least an hour before Will comes off the cage and Hannibal seizes his opportunity. His hand darts out through the bars, grabbing hold of Will’s ankle and he _tugs_ roughly, bringing him off balance and crashing to the floor. The keychain makes a clattering noise to his right, maybe just within his reach._ _

__He has seconds to react: with no limitation to his strength, he wrenches Will’s ankle through and into the cage, and _twists_ until the loud crack of bone echoes in the quiet, followed immediately by Will’s wail of pain. _ _

__Will screams, pulls his broken ankle out through the bars and scurries out of the way, too late noticing that he has moved himself not only away from Hannibal, but away from the keys as well. Hannibal takes no moment to consider - he rushes his body against the bars and juts his arm out as far as it will go. Fingers graze the edge of the key, his shoulder screaming in pain at the awkward position he’s pushed himself into. When he retreats back into the cage, it’s with the key._ _

__Will’s anger rumbles in his chest and he roars his frustration. Hannibal works quickly, gets the door unlocked but Will is on him, pressing it closed and laughing through the tears that stream down his cheeks._ _

__“Where are you going to go?!” Will screams at Hannibal, who smashes against the door with the side of his shoulder, his position unsuited to putting his full strength behind trying to get out._ _

__“You can’t leave me!” he wails, holding fast the door of the cage. “You wouldn’t leave me. You can’t do it. You can’t!” The last line is terrified, screamed thin into the air. Will begins to sob._ _

__The anger doesn’t immediately leave Hannibal, but the murderous edge to it softens by degrees. Killing Will wouldn’t be art, it would be a mercy. And, ultimately, he is unsure he’d even be killing the right person. He sees the watery madness on the surface of Will’s eyes, and when the man looks up Hannibal knows it’s _other Will_ looking back at him. It’s the interloper twisting Will’s lips into a deranged rictus grin, curling his fingers into his palms so he draws blood with his nails grown too long and sharp. _ _

__He may not have the seething, roiling, dangerous anger thickening his head and clogging up his throat that he had just moments before, but his monster still has a thrumming, restless energy that needs to be expelled. He still clutches the key so tightly in his palm that he can smell his blood on the air, can feel the indentation left in the skin._ _

__He launches himself at Will with the full force of his rage, throwing the door open hard enough that the hollow clang of it slamming against the other side of the frame is achingly loud in the quiet of the room._ _

__Will isn’t prepared for it, sprawling backwards on the floor with Hannibal over him, teeth gleaming in the low light of the moon filtering in through the thrown open windows. The air is full of static, both men growling more like animals in a dominance display rather than human._ _

__Hannibal’s chest is heaving, his throat burns from the adrenaline flooding his system._ _

__And he realizes, as he gazes into fathomless, empty eyes, that he can’t kill Will. But he must end him._ _

__Hannibal shifts on Will’s sternum, applying pressure to his ribcage, crushing his lungs tightly within the bone cage._ _

__He uses one hand to wrench Will’s flailing fists into a tight grip, extending them uncomfortably over his head. The other he wraps around his fluttering throat, his pulse pounding just beneath the skin._ _

__And he squeezes. Keeps squeezing until Will’s fiercely blazing eyes can’t help but slip close. Keeps squeezing even when his breathing goes high and tight and is probably painful in his chest._ _

__He squeezes until Will slips into unconsciousness, his features smoothing out in a restful repose he is rarely able to achieve when waking. He holds his grip a moment or two longer, ensuring that the man is truly out, unwilling to fight back._ _

__There’s a moment there, where he senses what it’s like to be alone. He imagines the feeling stretched through the decades, recalls how it had settled from a churning, stabbing pain to a dull ache to nothing at all. Still, once replaced with companionship, he is unwilling to carry its burden a second time,_ _

__No, he can’t kill Will. Not now. Perhaps no longer ever again. Hannibal lets his grip grow slack, until his hands only ring around Will’s neck, feeling the steady thumping of his life below the surface._ _

__Hannibal gets up first, cracking his spine as he extends to his full height. He scoops back down to grab Will’s dead weight, hoisting him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry like he weighs little more than a child. Together, he takes them down the stairs of their rented casa, through into the expansive kitchen: a luxury Hannibal hadn’t considered going without. He stops at the dining table and lays Will gently down._ _

__It’s been long enough since the Fall that they’ve settled into somewhat of a routine. The kitchen and dining room bare signs of this - the pushed out stool and empty wine glass where Will sits and watches while Hannibal cooks. The tangle of herbs Will had surprised Hannibal with on a particularly good day last spring, that Hannibal has seen grow and flourish like his affection for the burdened man that had given them to him. A stray novel laid abandoned in a nook in the corner, where Hannibal sits and reads while they braise their meat. All of these, reminders of moments when things weren’t so difficult between them. He could have that again, he thinks, then walks to the bathroom where he keeps his sedatives._ _

__Though what he intends to do won’t take long, he prefers to have it done with Will quiet and complacent. His is a peacefulness in sleep that he doesn’t want to mar with bindings or head restraints._ _

__The needle slides into his neck smoothly; Will whimpers in his sleep, his eyes flutter but he stays under and soon goes entirely slack. When he wakes again, it will be a broken man still, but broken in the ways that Hannibal can tolerate. Can manipulate and pretend._ _

__As the drug takes effect, Hannibal wanders the space, admiring the snapshots of their life they’ve carved out between psychoses. Upon the built-in shelves of the dining room: the beginning of their blended lives. Curios amongst fly gear amongst first edition Italian and Greek and French texts. The strange and the practical complement each other beautifully, much the way Hannibal had hoped that he and Will might, given enough time. The way they still might._ _

__Hannibal picks up the orbitoclast from its holder and regards it: for nearly 80 years old, it is in excellent condition. With a final look back at Will, he brings the pick-like device into the kitchen to clean._ _

__He hasn’t scrubbed in for years, but the ritual still calms him. He first lathers the tool and then his hands and arms up to the elbows. He dons gloves. His own heartbeat is steady, much like his hand will need to be in a moment’s time. With his minimal equipment, he returns to the dining room._ _

__The performance of a transorbital lobotomy is ridiculously simplistic: with minimal pressure, he can tap the sharpened end of the pick in past Will’s eye, past the delicate bone and through, to the prefrontal cortex and beyond. Despite its simplicity - or perhaps in part because of it - Hannibal has always considered the process particularly barbaric. He smooths a tangle off Will’s forehead, leans down to smell the otherness in him, coiled tight but resting and waiting for the next moment to take over. That is barbarism too, he reasons. Fighting fire with fire may be crude but he refuses to bare witness to Will’s invader any longer._ _

__It will be over in less than a handful of minutes. Will may whimper, but he will not fight this new becoming. Hannibal regards the quiet form laid supine on the dining table, face placid and still, without worry. He hopes when he wakes, the same sort of calm might settle on him again. Robbed of what he had hoped for Will, Hannibal has forced nature’s hand for a redo._ _

__He never thought he would stand where he does now, one gloved hand resting firmly over Will’s smooth forehead, the other carefully guiding the pick into the orbital cavity. Never, until the moment that he did. Then, for all its barbarism, he recognized it as a pure truth: to rid Will of the otherness that had invaded him, overtaken him, seen to tormenting Hannibal with increasing ferocity, he need simply to tap, tap, tap it out._ _

__And so he does._ _

**Author's Note:**

> Title from a poem by Ocean Vuong by the same name


End file.
